Ever wonder where Eugenians get all those wonderful Curbside Classics I bring to you three times a week? After almost two years, it’s finally time to reveal the secret: the St. Vincent dePaul (a mere coincidence) Car Donation Sales Lot. Admittedly, the front row here facing Hwy 99 doesn’t sport a lot of heavy Curbside appeal, but those in the know quickly work their way to the side and back lot, where the really fine sixties, seventies and early eighties vintage iron is held for the true connoisseurs. This is where no less than TTAC’s Editor-In-Chief bought his first car, and returned it here in considerably worse shape a couple of years later. Recycling at its best. It might still be in the back lot where it sat for years; let’s go look.

Before we do that, let’s peruse the front section a bit, where the cars most likely to sell quickly hang out. Here’s a nice Fifth Avenue, subject of a contentious CC Deadly Sin. Plenty of GM A-Bodies abound around the front; which one shall we use for our upcoming CC?

And here’s an N-Body, also awaiting a future CC. We’ve done that vintage Camry, and that generation Civic is awaiting its turn too.

There’s some clean old Explorers on the front row, but I can’t be bothered. The rougher SUVs, vans and trucks are parked along the side, and here’s a very early two-door XJ with an equally early Trooper II (CC here) ; two compact SUV pioneers.

Here’s a nice clean Grand Marquis for $895. Hurry! And a FWD Continental sedan awaits just past the Dakota.

Now here’s some global variety: another Cutlass, a MB 190 (no, it’s not a 2.3 16), a Toyota van, and a Festiva. Four of the biggest car-building nations represented here, except China and Brazil. Too bad there isn’t a Zap on tap.

Time to head into the side “reserve” lot. You have to show your CC credentials before you’re admitted here. And we’re greeted by the welcoming committee: a couple of big bruisers from the early seventies. The Olds Delta 88 looks to be a ’73, and the Ford LTD might be a couple of years younger. Maybe you could offer them a two-fer price. And no worries; both are headed to CC before long, but we want to catch them in their full glory on the street, where they belong.

Here’s the lovely tail of that big 88. Did I hear you ask about rust? Perish the thought. In Oregon, we have moss, lichen and other organic materials growing on our cars, but we’re certified 100% rust free.

You say you like early seventies iron, but hanker for something a little smaller? Here’s a cute little Datsun B210, one of a surprising number still around in Eugene. Edward had a soft spot for these, and if there had been a nice coupe when we were shopping here ten years ago, he might have well ended up with one.

Here’s another Panther, and one of my favorite Buicks ever, the last Skylark. Its bizarre styling will make it the equivalent of a B210 in another decade or two. Time to buy now, before prices rise on this rare coupe version.

A Mercury Tracer! These are getting hard to find too. Shall I put a hold on it for you?

For some reason, the back lot is not open to the public. Maybe you have to make a donation first, or it’s for repeat buyers. There’s a lovely New Yorker (coming to CC soon), a Panther wagon, and a Corsica. Still my beating heart!

Speaking of K cars, a sweet Dynasty awaits you here. And that ’65 F-100 would make a fine parts car for my rapidly disintegrating Ford.

You say you fancy yourself in something sportier? Here’s a well-aged Firebird next to a similar vintage Mustang. Notice I didn’t say “fast”.

Let’s go back to the front and see what we might have missed. Here’s a serene and luxurious Park Avenue and a nice early Astro van. They make a nice pair, don’t you think?

Did I save the best for last? Quite possibly. This fine BMW 528e is priced at $796; it’s a stick too. The Continental Mark VII and Saab 900 Turbo haven’t been price-stickered yet. From the looks of it, they just got donated, so hurry on over, if you fancy one of them.

Well, we didn’t find Ed’s old ’81 Mazda 626. I hope someone took it and showered it with the love and attention it so needed and deserved, but I fear for the worst. Conveniently, or ominously, Eugene’s Pick And Pull yard is just down the road.

And this gem of a ’67 T-Bird that I shot here last summer is gone too. But I doubt it went to the boneyard. Maybe I should stop by here more often. And what would Steve Lang do with these? Sell, Finance, Keep or Kill?

73 Comments on “The Official Curbside Classic Sales Lot: All $895 Or Less...”

What a coincidence! I got my first (kiddie) car at St. Vincent De Paul in Seattle. The year was probably 1956.
That T-bird is a beauty. I’m surprised someone donated it. I’ll take the Tracer. I was very fond of the old 323/Escort/Tracer triplets in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Can’t wait to see the Imperial.
Great job finding humor in a used car lot!

My grandmother had one of those Skylarks as a sedan, 3.1 V6, would light the front tires at will. God bless slow revving torquey V6s in light weight FWD cars. Putting smiles on the faces of grandsons since at least the 80s.

My elderly land-lady had one of those pointy Skylarks until last year. She was spending a few thousand dollars a year trying to keep it running and smogged. AAA cut her off – No more tow trucks for you! It had 38,000 miles and spent its life garaged in living room climate San Diego. The latest story from the Buick dealer was that maybe a $2000 new dashboard would finally extinguish the check engine light. Maybe. She traded it on a Kia last year. My then-gf and I drove it the 15 miles to the dealer to turn it in for a $500 ‘blind trade in’ credit. The heater core blew on the way. By the time I got there, I was driving with my head out the window as the windshield was steamed opaque. When I first saw the Buick 2 years ago, I thought it was sort of a quaint car for a little old lady to be driving. A year later, I was tired of getting requests to retrieve it from parking lots where it broke down or hearing about how the Buick dealer and two independent mechanics couldn’t figure out how to make it work well enough to complete round trips.

I was just going to post about the Ciera. When down on my luck a decade ago, I bought a loaded Ciera SL for the princely sum of $700. What a car! The paint looked like crap but it went like stink! Fantastic instrument panel, I have yet to see better and the 3.3 litre V-6 made torque to beat the band, wow, was it great around town because the car only weighed like 3000 lbs. It also had an excellent quality interior and handled quite well. Drove it for a three years and only put brakes on it.

I often wondered why the automotive press hated them so much, I loved mine.

If you allow me, Now here’s some global variety: another Cutlass, a MB 190 (no, it’s not a 2.3 16), a Toyota van, and a Festiva. All four big car-building nations represented here, except China. Too bad there isn’t a Zap on tap, is a little wrong.

As documented in TTAC itself a while back, Brazil as taken 4th place from Germany. So, close but no cigar! If you said the top 4 car “designing” nations or top 4 nations that develop their own cars, ok, but as its wriiten…

Loved the article. As I get older I find myself hankering for older cars. The new ones don’t really move me. So, I suspect that if I lived in Eugene, I’d have already discovered that wonderful used car lot.

Marcelo, he has shown the Chevette, a hated car over there, and loved down here. I haven’t seen yet a Ford Cargo in his pictures, but those were also imported from Brazil

And I also like older cars. In fact, I don’t really like new cars that much. I think that has to do with having worked in assembly plants the last 6 years. They just don’t impress like they did before.

Hummmm, now I’m the one who got busted. I knew I was getting the name wrong, so I just threw some VW names I thought VW might have used. LOL!

Feel free tp contact me when writting it, and I’ll give you the Brazilian perspective. Fpr example, though it was built here, IIRC, more than 100 parts and systems were changed to make it good enough for America. Which gives you a pretty good idea of how “good” was the one sold in our market!

We have several places in my town that sell cars in this manner. I’ve donated one to them myself, which was way easier than trying to sell it myself. Occasionally, they get some really neat old metal. One of my recent favorites was a mid 80’s Olds 98, right when they switched to the FWD platform. I’m guessing children or grandchildren got the car willed to them (it looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor), didn’t want to sell it themselves and gave it to Mel Trotter’s (the charity that re-sells the cars). I saw the car in traffic a few weeks later, some lucky Mexican was driving it down the main drag near my house.

Here in Ontario twenty year old cars are rare. That old T Bird? You would be lucky to get 10 years out of them. I see the front end of a 75? GMC pick up. My buddy had one brand new. He would spray, or dump, or squirt used motor oil in every crook and cranny. It always looked filthy but it didn’t rust.

You folks in no rust country are very fortunate to be able to good old beaters, so cheap.

In most of Georgia rust is a non-issue. A 20 year old car here isn’t even given the time of day and the roads are extremely kind to the elder autos. Supposedly we have the smoothest roads in the country… but I’m sure that doesn’t include all the mud and gravel roads.
The barometer for a classic here is probably right around 30 years.

Amen, although my lady is a little more forgiving. When she catches me admiring an old car like that M-body or a giant GM B-body wagon she says something like; “You know you’d have to sleep in it for at least ONE night if you brought it home?”

That’s what I love about this place, I knew I wouldn’t be the only knucklehead shamelessly aroused by those photos. I saw at least 5 cars I’d take home….or at least what would be my home for a few days until I too was served with divorce papers….again.

I liked the white Taurus wagon, it would make an awesome sleeper with a SHO swap or some more modern drivetrain. I really like the 2nd gen Taurus style, and along the 00-04 Impala, are 2 cars I’d love to own, and modify :D

The Festiva would be a worthy CC. And it’s still in production in Iran. SAIPA has made a facelifting and some improvements to it, some more variants: pickup, 5 door hatch (141) and the new 132 and 111.

I know them very closely, and it’s a simple and honest small POS. Cheap and easy to fix and hard to kill.

Lovely collection you(they) have there. Guessing by the rarity of most of those cars in Norway, and the fact that ‘ALL’ big cars are luxury cars in Norway, that used car lot is worth millions upon millions. If you could be bothered to ship them all over here….
(except that Volvo and the mini-Merc, they literally grow on threes here)

I think I’ve died and gone to crap car heaven.
One of the nicer things about the St. Vincent’s car program is that they tend to attract cars that were owned by older and more conservative folks.
I wouldn’t say that these cars are good to go by any stretch of the imagination. But often times the repair costs are very reasonable for the DIY’er who has easy access to a good junkyard or pull-a-part.
As for the Tbird? Sell. Unless it was given a 427 or 428 engine and still has a decent interior. In that case I would race the wheels off of it in the winding roads of northwest Georgia.
Somehow I think that things got a 390, and an interior not worthy of a Chevette.

Do all these vehicles actually run and drive? If so, makes you wonder why they are not snapped up in nanoseconds by the economically challenged folks of Eugene. Heck, $895 is no more than the required down payment at many BHPH lots that want to sell you a 10 year old Cavalier at twice book value and 24 percent interest.

Their mechanical condition is highly variable, depending on why folks donated. Some do it because they’re faced with an expensive transmission rebuild or something like that. Buyer beware! And the prices are highly negotiable, based on condition. But you better figure that out first, or quickly.

That ’73 88 reminds me of an odscure fact that a two door 1973 with a stock rocket 455 and a vynal roof could beat a Boss 302 Mustang between the lights all with really nice bias ply General tires and a 1/4 tank of gas (all I could afford).
I could do the initial cost of the car but would need a second mortgage to pay for the gas to get it home!
What a treat to see one again.

It’s entirely believable and not too surprising that a boat like a ’73 88 455 could take a Boss 302. The small displacement combined with huge valves of the Boss 302 made it a race engine ill-suited to street use, particularly in the stoplight-to-stoplight drag.

Ironically, the Boss 302’s successor, the Boss 351 (and the whole Cleveland-series, for that matter), were great engines. Unfortunately, they came in right as the musclecar era was drawing to a close.

After perusing the photos again, I think I’d pop on that ugly gray Dakota with cap. Oh, that would be handy around here. Or that late 80’s Firebird. Of course the blue LeSabre would be a good deal gotten inexpensively.

When I was a kid, my parents had an 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera just like that blue one, same colour and everything. I remember once, when we were on a road trip, the plastic panel that housed the door locks and the window switches fell off of the door panel, and we had to re-attach it with duct tape. My parents always complained about it being too slow, so naturally they traded it for Minivan.

I am from Buffalo, NY, and my plan has always been to spend my entire life here. These Curbside Classics have started to make me reconsider. Maybe I should move to Eugene. I would have a field day at this lot! So many of the Curbside Classics that have been featured simply do not exist here. They’ve rotted away long ago. Growing up in the 80s, I remember seeing a lot of rusty old cars. As in, partially disintegrated at the bottom and around the wheelwells, with big holes in the side of the doors, barely holding together. Later, I realized that at the time, these “old cars” were actually from the mid-70s, and weren’t all that old at the time. Things have improved since that time, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything from the 1980s still in regular use these days, and cars from the early 90s are increasingly rare.

My parents had a New Yorker very much like the one pictured here, back in the day. It had the 3.0L V-6 and was surprisingly reliable. The interior didn’t exactly exude quality — I remember the faux wood trim on the doors prematurely falling off — but the exterior held up really well. When we finally got rid of it, it was 17 years old and with basically no rust on the body. The least reliable parts of the car were the hooded headlights, which never really worked properly. All told, it was a solid vehicle undeserving of its bad reputation — we ultimately retired the car at 380,000 kilometers.

I’ve been to that lot several times and, while highly entertaining, I was never really tempted by anything. I did testdrive a 79 or so Continental just for fun. Orange interior, Green exterior or some such so-bad-it’s-awesome combo.

Trivia: Ten or so years ago I was driving home to Eugene from Coos Bay on Highway 38 around midnight. Came upon a long traffic back-up. No one moved for a good half-hour. Turns out a mini-van struck an elk, which in turn struck and killed a motorcyclist coming the other way. Turns out the motorcyclist was the son of a co-worker of mine. The son had bought the motorcycle at this exact dePaul lot (it was down 99 a few blocks then). Turns out the motorcycle had been donated by the parents of the prior owner, who had also been killed on the exact bike.

I just went to one of these “donation” lots last weekend. The diversity is really quite astonishing. Among the selection was an ’89 Caprice Estate woody, late-80s Honda Civic Wagon, a 1986 Taurus that resembled a hunk of swiss cheese, a mid-90s Chrysler LHS, numerous Ciera/Century A-bodies, and an absolutely pristine, low-mileage, red 1982 Dodge Mirada(!!) with button-pressed leather bucket seats (I really wanted that one).
Okay, that actually sounds a little dull compared to what you have here, but I thought it was pretty neat.

I know Miradas are all kinds of trouble, but I would have wanted one too. There are plenty of ads here soliciting car donations. I will have to look into where they resell them. I have extra parking room for at least 90% of a Festiva!

I must admit I have a rather soft spot for the A-body Olds Cutlass Ciera. Rented one once for a rather long trip across Texas. Not a fancy car by any measure, but it felt like an honest, trustworthy automotive appliance. Of course that car was practically new, as rental cars often are. Who knows what they’re like at this age now. Bug I dig the Delta 88 the most among the cars in that lot!

You could hypothetically seat 8 very skinny people in one of their wagons.
My wife’s family had one for a short time. Bought new. Lady in a Neon ran a red light and smashed the poor thing to bits. My wife had a hairline fracture on her hip and a bunch of her other siblings went to the hospital with less severe injuries.
It’s a very honest and plainjane car that is perhaps the least competitive vehicle sold through most of the 1990’s. The only redeeming of these vehicles is their cost of ownership and lack of resale value.

Hey Paul! Do they bring these cars to an auction if they’re not sold after a few months?

Steve, I don’t know what they do. It seems that they move the slow sellers to the side and back, probably because they have more serious mechanical issues. People drop off cars that they know need major work. I suspect that eventually the clunkers get junked.

Historically these classics enjoyed a second life in Mexico with a new loving family. Then on to Central America for a third life. Mexico banned all imports of used cars older than 10 years old (or younger) meaning only MY2000 are currently being accepted and next year only 2001s. Light trucks are the exception which is probably why people rarely donate trucks from the ’80s and ’90s. Too valuable. Have you see the prices of ’80s or ’90s Toyota pickups? Geez!

Enjoy it while it lasts. I just did some googling to see if there’s a comparable lot near where I live. SVdP has just launched a “National Vehicle Donation Program”, with all the vehicles going straight to auction. The lot local to me just closed because they decided the expense of operating it was too great. All cars donated locally will now go (you guessed it) straight to auction.

If I was going to buy a “beater”though, I’d stay away from anything FWD from the Big 3 from the early 80’s to the late 90’s. Almost everything from that era is junk, and that $895 car will be the most expensive car you ever owned, even if it was owned by a little old lady that only drove to church on Sundays.

1. The Cutlass Ciera – this was a major sales success for GM. Simple, dependable, honest transportation that was one of the last great Oldsmobiles to be produced.

2. The Lincoln Continental – Less successful from a sales perspective, but equally interesting. Based on the Taurus, FWD, V6, it was a very “modern” type of luxury automobile for its time when V8s still ruled the luxury game.

Had a 1994 A-body Ciera like the car pictured with the 3100 and 4t60 transaxle. Bought the car with 111K and drove it well over 200 with but an intake manifold, tires and brakes replaced in that time and it never broke down once and was very cheap to run/insure and fix. I will always remember that car as saving my bacon when times were tough and I was out of work for a while. No car payment plus reliable and cheap to fix transportation was just what the doctor ordered at the time.

SVDP is awesome! In 1999/2000, I lived in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans- on Erato street to be exact- and just one block over, at the corner of Calliope and Camp, was the coolest StV deP thrift store. Now, this being pre-katrina New Orleans, there were so many cars that showed up but had rusted out everywhere else in the country- two early RX7’s, a cool Volvo 144 from ’69 with a really nice woolcloth interior; and lots else.
Now, I used to walk by everyday- wouldn’t you if it was across the street from your house- when something caught my eye- a 1983 Plymouth Gran Fury, in ‘Government Gold’. I took it for a test drive; and $400 later, it was mine- complete with no rust, feedback carburettor, fallen headliner, and probably the last slant-6 put into a car. This was the base model, with painted roof, looking very undercover- hence her name Phoebe (FBI). She was great- after replacing the dizzy, carb, and related gubbins with ones for a ’71 Dart 225, and then ceremonially smashing the lean burn leftovers ala OfficeSpace. Happy days.

I have my eyes on the Mark VII, which is said to run & drive but needs work on the air-ride system. Anyone know anything about the air-ride on those and/or if it’s possible to replace it with Fox-body LTD, Fairmont or T-bird/Cougar shocks?
Paul, if you’re watching, have I got a suggestion for you, for a similar nature CC to this: It’s on Maxwell in Eugene across from the restaurant equipment store and has a great mix of interesting project cars, junk and late-models.

Oh, the last model Skylarks. Odd looking cars, but extremely comfortable. My sister’s first car was a 95 Sedan. She got it when it was two years old with probably 2,000 miles…if even that. My grandmother bought it brand new in 1995, but never drove it. The car salesman (a close family friend) always said it was the only car he ever sold where the buyer never set foot in the showroom. My grandmother had asthma and couldn’t stay out long so my mom did all the paperwork. Grandma just went and picked which car she wanted. But I digress…
When my sister got it, it had made various trips around town and one trip from Southern Virginia to Washington, D.C. when my father’s 92 Loyale was starting to have brake issues. She drove it 60 miles a day to school (30 to and 30 back) and took it to school with her. It had the Dynaride suspension package, and let me tell something: it rode smoother on the roads through the foothills of southern Virginia than any car I’ve driven or rode in.
She traded it in on a 2000 Cougar in 2001 with no more than 30,000 miles on the clock…if even that. I’m 5 years younger than she, and was in 8th grade when she sold it, but we both still fondly reminisce about it.